(In front of the Gate of Inviting the Moon of the Long Corridor)
Ladies and Gentlemen, you may have visited some of the best museums in the world, such as the Louvre in France and the Museum of Great Britain. Now I will show you a special gallery in the palace—the Long Corridor. In 1990, the Long Corridor was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as ‘the longest painted corridor’ in the world’. It would be a pity if we leave the Summer Palace without visiting the Long Corridor and the Marble Boat. Now, here we go, the Long Corridor first!
(Strolling along the Long Corridor)
The Long Corridor starts from the Gate Inviting the Moon to the Shizhang Gate. It is 728 meters long and consists of 273 sections. The Long corridor is one of the major structures of the Summer Palace. Since the corridor was designed to follow the physical features of the southern slope of Longevity Hill, four multiple-eaved, octagonal pavilions ( Retaining the Goodness Pavilion, Living with the Ripples Pavilion, Autumn Water Pavilion, Clear and Far Pavilion) were placed at bends and undulation, they represent four seaons of a year. Thus visitors will hardly notice the rise and fall of the terrain. As a major part of the architectural style of the Summer Palace, the Long Corridor serves as an ingenious connector between the Lake and the Hill. Scattered buildings on the southern slope were linked to create a unified complex.
The Long Corridor is the longest covered veranda in any Chinese garden. On the purlins and beams of the covered veranda, there are over 14,000 Suzhou style paintings. Among them, there are 546 color paintings relating to the scenes of West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Beside the colorful paintings of natural scenery, there are also scenes of flowers, birds, fish, insects, mythology and figures. The paintings of figures are mainly adapted from ancient Chinese classical literature, such as ‘Pilgrimage to the West’, ‘The Romance of the Three Kingdoms’, ‘The western Chamber’, “Water Margin’, and ‘The Dream of the Red Mansion’.
(In front of the Gate of Dispelling Clouds)
Now we are approaching the central part of the structures on the lakeside slope, the Tower of Buddhist Incense within the Hall of Dispelling Clouds. The central axis line starts from the wharf next to the lake to the Sea of Wisdom on top of the Hill. The main architectural structures here are the Gate of Dispelling Clouds, Hall of Dispelling clouds, Tower of Buddhist Incense and the Sea of Wisdom, which altogether form a splendid three-dimensional landscape. The layout of this group of architectures was based on scenes described in Buddhist sutras. This group of structures are among the most magnificently constructed here in the Summer Palace. This is a good place to taking photos, we will stay here for about 15 minutes.
Now we are walking continuely along the Long Corridor, the next scene we are going to visit is Marble Boat.
Look over there! Halfway up the slope there stands the Hall of Listening to Orioles. It was the place for emperor and empress to enjoy opera and court music. It is said the singing of orioles is very pleasing. Before the Garden of Virtuous Harmony was built, Empress Dowager Cixi enjoyed opera and music here. Now the hall is one of the most famous restaurants in China, featuring imperial dishes and desserts.
This is the famous Marble Boat. A famous scientist of China’s Eastern Han Dynasty once said, “Water can float the boat, but it can also tip it over.” A prime minister of Tang Dynasty Wei Zheng once used these words to persuade Li Shimin, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty. He said people are water and the emperor is the boat. People can support a good emperor. However, they also can overthrow the dynasty. Emperor Qianlong built this huge boat in the Garden in order to make the allusion concrete. On one hand, Emperor Qianlong encouraged himself to run the country well. On the other hand, he wanted to show that his rule of the Qing Dynasty was as firm as the Marble Boat and there was no fear of overturning the boat. The Marble Boat was the place for Emperor Qianlong to sample tea and enjoy the scenery of Kunming Lake. Emperor Qianlong once came here to engage in the freeing of captive animals. In the times of Qianlong, the Marble Boat was a Chinese styled stone boat with a Chinese style wooden superstructure on the top of it. When it was rebuilt in the times of Guangxu, a foreign and Chinese elements mixed resulting in two wheels to be added to the boat, one on each side. The floor was paved with colored bricks. All of the windows were inlaid with multiple-colored glass. A big mirror was installed on the superstructure for viewing rain.